This will be the year in which Radcliffe "quietly takes its place as a unit within Harvard University," President Bunting said yesterday at Radcliffe's formal opening.

Mrs. Bunting spoke at a College convocation inaugurating the first year in which Radcliffe students will receive Harvard diplomas.

In the distant future, she said, Radcliffe might consider "fading out of the picture" as it gains access to more of Harvard's resources. She suggested there was no point in Radcliffe's separate existence if it succeeded only in giving a Harvard education to women. The diploma merger will add "new strength and dignity" to both Harvard and Radcliffe, Mrs. Bunting added. She viewed the merger as a logical outcome of the 1943 agreement making the Harvard faculty responsible for Radcliffe education.

Clarifying the current relationships between Harvard and Radcliffe, Mrs. Bunting pointed out that Radcliffe is responsible for its own admissions, social aid, and living and working conditions.

But even these strictly Radcliffe responsibilities reflect the College's Harvard-conscious thinking, she said. "With new House system, we are fitting into Harvard scheme of things."

President Bunting noted that for the first time this year Radcliffe girls are having a regular Harvard catalogue, a Harvard catalogue bound between Radcliffe covers.

Citing another first for this year, Mrs. Bunting noted that there is no longer a Radcliffe graduate school, and that admission of women graduate students is now handled by the departments in Harvard Faculty. As with the undergraduates, Radcliffe is still concerned with women's housing and financial aid.

In undergraduate affairs, President Bunting mentioned the newly-liberalized house rules approved by the Radcliffe Government Association last spring. "No wishes more than I that the rules will work," she said. But she cautioned that the RGA, which includes the Administration, will not hesitate to establish stricter rules if the great freedom provided to juniors and seniors proves too liberal.